I'm not focusing on the cosmological nor symbolical aspect of Kantu and Melayu Ethnics, rather exploring the changing land use from different period and analyzing how certain schemes of spatial historical knowledge influences being intersect with scientific-analysis of forest landscape they had learned in the vast timber logging era. For your information this ethnics also live in the middle of global flux of ideas since the emerging trade network of forest commodity, connecting them with the big tradition of cosmology such as christianity and Islamic Kingdom. But I have found the information about their belief (Kantu Tribe) which explaining about the concept dead land (tanah mati) and living land which mark where is the land that has reciprocity between nature and human and where is not. Since they were living in the swamp and lowland area they were not refering to mountain or cosmic oceans in the origin of belief, great tradition and modernity had change their belief for hundred years.

My area of interest are anthropology of space, cultural construction of technology, and also science and technology studies. I'm currently work at Center of Anthropological Studies University of Indonesia. I'm now currently in the middle of my fieldwork in Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan, studying the relation between ecological landscape and cultural landscape in the middle of historical continuity of forest use among Dayak Kantu and Melayu Ethnics. I'm very happy for your kind welcoming message. Thanks Alice.

My areas of interest are innovation anthropology and business anthropology. I currently work as an innovation anthropologist in a small branding company. I have been working within market research, product and concept development, idea generation and facilitating workshops. I am looking forward to applying anthropology and ethnographic method into practice in my new job!

Many thanks for your welcoming message. I am dealing with Visual and legal Anthropology. But my interest is nomads/Pastoralists( Mbororo) in central Africa, refugees and gender; frontiers and belonging. I hold a master in Law and another in visual anthropology from Tromso university. I did my fieldwork in the northern Cameroon on the Mbororo settlment process. Now I am a PhD candidate dealing with the issue of refugees from Central Africa Republic to the Eastern Cameroon. It is the same ethnic group though but who has to change their life system because of the civil war and insecurity in the bush. From "nomadism" to "refugism" what it is?

Hi Alice,
I recently finished schooling to become a registered, licensed dietitian ...but my interests are more geared to ethnobotany. There seems to be many local "edibles" that the general public are not aware of. In todays economy, that information could prove beneficial to those struggling, not to mention the health benefits of eating local, fresh foods. I hope to have some free time to explore your forum.

Thanks for the welcome note, Alice... I teach in international business and marketing, and my research interests are in consumer and organizational cultures, especially in terms of the global-local dialectics. I am also interested in globalization and technology intersections, and also increasingly in the intersections of Finanzkapital and brand cultures.

Thanks for the welcome! My main interest is anthropology and the environment- more specifically, the cultural relationships that various peoples have with plants and animals and how these relationships impact the planet. I'm also interested in Aboriginal law and governance particularly as it relates to environmental issues. I've been working as an instructor at the Native Education College in Vancouver, BC for the past few years but am starting law school at Osgoode Hall in Sept. with the aim of practicing at the intersection of Aboriginal and environmental law.

Hi Alice! I am most familiar with the U.S. - Plains and the Southwest. I do teach about the Near East's origins of agriculture, though...not too familiar with Africa....I am not familiar with Susan Burns....no, I did not see her comment - I will check out next.

Yes, the symbolism goes way back. Even as flag colors for the country, the three colors (red, green, yellow/gold) go back to the seventeenth century; and as dynastic colors probably back more than two thousand years. (^ Manoel Barradas, "Tractatus Tres Historico-Geographici: (1634); A Seventeenth Century Historical and Geographical Account of Tigray, Ethiopia", Elizabet Filleul, trans., Richard Pankhurst, ed., in Aethiopistische Forschungen 43. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996, p. 59.)

Red ochre was used in the U.S. as well (especially in the Red Ocher culture burials - see, e.g., Ron Mason's over-view of Great Lakes archaeology).

I didn't really get very deep into the history, so the information of the shape of the churches --"obvious" after the fact -- is a revelation to me. The honey sellers were quite pragmatic and didn't have much or any-thing to say about cultural meaning, symbolism etc. But in the t'ejj bets, I found a lot of symbolism, only a little bit of it at the conscious level among the owners I interviewed. The colors of the average t'ejj bet mostly coincide with those of the national flag, which has a conscious symbolism. Right now, I'm on vacation and don't have access to my notes, so I'm a bit hazy on this. The red refers to raw meat eaten in t'ejj bets and to power/stength (perhaps virility). The green can reflect fresh grass on the floor and life and vitality as well as the source of the honey, which is used to make t'ejj. Yellow refers to at least honey.

Another feature of the t'ejj bets that I recall was the discarding of the top bit of the t'ejj from the drinking vessel. this is, to the best of my knowledge, never done with any-thing else (e.g., water, soft drinks). Different explanations were given, including to get rid of a part of the drink that was not good, 'it's just a tradition' and appeasing the supernatural.

I found it interesting that in many t'ejj bets there were both prominent anti-AIDS posters and a religious spot. I believe the only "t'ejj bet" that I was in where I did not see a religious spot was an up-class place that in almost all ways was radically different from the others I visited (light versus dark, open versus closed, expensive versus cheap, stand-offish versus either secretive or open and friendly).

There is a master's thesis on t'ejj bets at the AA U library, but I was unable to gain access to it.

I did field-work among honey-and-butter merchants in Addis. It wasn't long, and my Amharic was pretty weak (now it's gone). Still, I feel I learned stuff, and the merchants I was with even said that I knew stuff that they didn't. I tried to impart that knowledge to them. I had wanted to follow the whole honey trail, from the first steps in production through to consumption, but I just missed an opportunity to work with the farmers. Besides the market, most of my focus was on t'ejj bets.

(archaeological culture in the Great Lakes area, ca. 1300 for my site on Green Bay). I am also interested in archaeological bibliography (maybe a dying art), ethnographical work done by ancient Romans and Greeks, osteohistology, Ethiopian ethnography, Amana, sociolinguistics, and archaeology in science fiction.